


Tip the Scales

by SandrC



Series: Not Another Fanfiction Collection [17]
Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemon Severance/Intercision, Daemon Touching, Divinity is alien, Galad Rosell is His Own Warning, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21972226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: It is said that when the gods created the Prime Material Plane, they shed sweat over the world they created and, from that, came the Dust. From the Dust, came daemons, who bonded with the peoples of the Prime Material Plane and mortals have not been alone since.(A Collection of NADDPOD Daemon AU fics of varying length, set in the same universe, in the same timeline, chronologically unsettled.)
Relationships: Moonshine Cybin & Hardwon Surefoot & Beverly Toegold V
Series: Not Another Fanfiction Collection [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1312925
Comments: 20
Kudos: 34





	1. i. touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moonshine understands the social stigma behind daemon touching. She didn't before she left the Crick.
> 
> Warning: non-con daemon touching, Galad Rosell
> 
> (Moonshine and PawPaw)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait for a bit and try and finish the whole compilation fic but I realized how big this was gonna get and was like "oh, uh, lemme just..." so it's now a small series? Probably only gonna be about 10-ish chapters. No more than 30. Soft estimate. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I'm using my own daemon lore to a degree and there will be chapter specific lore at the end of the chapter, in the notes, so keep an eye out for that.
> 
> I love reviews and conversation. I live for validation. Please gimme something.
> 
> (This story concept started with the thought about how spells like revivify would effect a daemon, as when someone dies, their daemon becomes Dust. It spiraled into this because I have 0 chill.)

It's _weird_ being back in the Crick. Even after everything that had happened—in such a short time, too—she feels somewhat _disconnected_ from her home now. She knows that people don't like it when you get in their things. That ownership is private. That you _don't_ touch someone else's daemon without their say-so.

When Bev and Hardwon held PawPaw— _always_ with her permission, often with _theirs_ beforehand—it felt _good_. Like the Crick. Like _home_. Warm and safe. And while the Crick didn't care _too_ much about the social niceties of daemons, she had learned to respect the unspoken rule that you _don't_ touch someone's daemon without permission or knowing them first.

When they arrive in the Crick proper, Cooter snags PawPaw in a hug and her whole body stiffens in a blind panic. Her breath catches in her chest and she can't hear for all the whining in her ears. She understands the way Bev had frozen when she first scooped up Leslie in a Crick-standard nuzzle.

Because she _knows_ Cooter—she _loves_ him, in the same way she loves _all_ the Crick folk—but all she can think about is Galad's sneer and his thin fingers around PawPaw's neck and the way it felt back in the lower dungeon of the Galaderon castle.

She couldn't breathe. Her chest _ached_. His legs had gone limp and he had stopped struggling, his quickly shifting form slowing as he lost consciousness.

It had only been by the sheer force of Hardwon's axe in his chest that Galad even dropped PawPaw. The grim catharsis of watching Stella go from a lioness to Dust was only undercut by the relieved panic that caused her to clutch PawPaw against her for a solid minute while Hardwon and Bev looted his corpse, beheaded him, and planned on their ascension into the dungeon proper. And for several days after, she kept PawPaw to herself, tentatively afraid to let other folks _see_ or _touch_ him. He, _too_ , kept close to her, though he would hiss protectively whenever someone he didn't like got too close.

So Cooter hugs PawPaw and she _freezes_ and it takes Hardwon asking about Mee Maw for him to put PawPaw down and guide them to the Grandma Tree. Bev watches her as she bends down, silent and distant, still in her own head about this, to pick him up and cradle him to her chest.

There is a small kindness in how Leslie pads to heel beside her and asks if she's okay. A larger one in Keen perching on her shoulder and not saying a word. That her companions would extend their souls to comfort her means more than she could _ever_ express.

(She hands PawPaw off to Bev when she steps on the Speaking Stump and makes hard eye-contact with Brother Albrecht and his leopard, explaining that they _would_ be curing the Rot by heading into the fog _themselves_. It's both for _her_ benefit—having someone she knows holding him makes her feel _safe_ —and for _his_ —his hands still shake when he looks at the cadre of Chosen assembled to "convert" the Crick folks. When she feels the warmth of him nuzzling his face into PawPaw's fur, it fills her with the strength to soldier on and declare a cold war of hospitality on the Chosen. It _also_ chases away the lingering ghost of Galad's touch.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elf daemons take a couple centuries to settle.
> 
> Settling requires a conscious decision made by the person that solidifies who they are personality and morality-wise.
> 
> The Crick doesn't do the whole daemon touching taboo, but that's coz the Crick doesn't do personal boundaries and everyone is family.
> 
> Daemon touching isn't sexual, though it is intimate. The feeling of being touched is always a mirror of the person and intent behind the touching.


	2. ii. death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More than the pain of dying, the sight of Keen dissolving into a fine spiral of Dust sends Hardwon into a panic. He just doesn't have the air in his punctured lungs to cry out.
> 
> Warning: canon character death and undeath, spoilers for episode 54, daemon severing (unintentional)
> 
> (Hardwon and Keensight)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In HDM, when someone dies, their daemon returns to Dust. In a world where resurrection magic is a thing that exists, how would that change things?
> 
> This is the chapter I think about that.
> 
> I also, as I am wont to do, bully Hardwon.
> 
> I love my thicc dummy, but he's an easy and soft target.
> 
> Keen's full name is Keensight and no one but Hardwon ever really calls her that. It's fun. Keen is a kite — specifically a pearl kite — and therefore is very tiny but very fierce. (Please look up pics of this small birb. They're great.)

Dying _hurts_. It's not like Hardwon _didn't_ know dying hurt. That's common knowledge, after all. People don't die _for funsies_. It's just that _knowing_ and _experiencing_ are two different animals.

What scares Hardwon the most about dying—which is a _wild_ concept, considering that he even _has_ feelings on the concept of dying after the fact—is not the cold emptiness of choosing where he wants to go. It's not being faced with his _heritage_ , his _inheritance_ , and his _biggest mistake_. It's not the raw panic of feeling Bev _beg_ him to return to them, sobbing to the wind as he draws his soul forth from beyond the veil.

It's actually watching Keen reform from Dust and unsettle, flickering through a dozen forms in a blind panic.

" _You were gone!_ Keen was _Dust_ and you were _gone_ and I was _so scared_!" Beverly, snotty and _barely_ intelligible, has his arms wrapped around Hardwon's waist and is howling to high heaven.

"We didn't know what was happening! We'd never _used_ that spell before!" Leslie added. He wrapped himself around Bev's neck in the shape of a large snake, loose coils slowly drooping as he relaxed.

"I don't — _where's Keen_?" His chest feels tight and his emotions are a million miles away. He can't _feel_ her. Can't _see_ her. She's gone. _She's gone._

He had _died_ and she's _gone_ because of him.

Just like his _mom_.

Like _Gemma_.

She's _gone_ and it's _all his fault._

And then, as if Pelor had a backlog on answering prayers, a large cloud of golden Dust coalesces into a small bird and he _feels_ her again. He breathes, sharp, and lunges forward to grab at her.

" ** _Keen!_** " She flickers, once, and suddenly is a small housecat, bounding into his grasp. Once he has a grip on her, he can feel her shift over and _over_ and **_over_** again as they shake with exhaustion and relief.

"I was _gone_!" She cries.

"I couldn't feel you!" He answers. The sheer terror of what had just occurred saps the strength from his legs and the air from his lungs. "Could you see where I was? _What happened?_ "

"I was _everywhere_ and _nowhere_. I couldn't see anything but I knew I _was_ once. I knew I was _someone_ once, even if I wasn't _then_. And then I _heard_ — I heard _Leslie_ calling for me?" Keen shudders and flickers again and _again_ and **_again_** , shifting half a dozen more times as she explains. "And I could feel you calling too and I _had_ to come back. I _couldn't_ leave you _alone_. I _had_ to come back! _I **had** to!_ I was _all_ you had left! _I couldn't **leave** you!_"

It's a few minutes before either Keen or Hardwon can even bring themselves to be aware of the others again, clinging to each other as she flickers through a dozen shapes, both of them _severely_ unsettled in _both_ senses of the word. When they peel away, Keen setting back on Hardwon's shoulder in her standard form, they can see Moonshine and PawPaw and Beverly and Leslie and Balnor and Alex watching him with a distant fear.

He doesn't pretend that he isn't going to cry until he's exhausted. There's no point. They can see his body shaking still and Keen isn't doing well either, her feathers puffed out and her talons digging into his shoulder. The scar on his chest hurts and so does his heart and his _soul_ and his friends—who pulled him from the grasp of death and coaxed the Dust back into the shape of his soul—wrap themselves around him and comfort him. Even Bev Sr watches from a distance, a strange sort of sadness cutting through his normal focused gaze, his fingers carding through Jackie's short fur.

That night they share a bed and everyone lays together, daemons _and_ people, and the warmth of friends and family of choice chases away the cold fingers of death and Dust and the memory of his mother wandering Shadowfell.

Or, _rather_ , it makes it easier to shove it into the small lockbox in his chest alongside Gemma's death and Balnor's past and his feelings of inadequacy. Even easier still to bury it under pounds of fake smiles and raucous laughter. Of love and home.

( _Days_ later, when they're scouting for a safe route into the maze, Hardwon barely notices as Keen gets further and further away, the pull he would feel long gone. It isn't until Bev worriedly asks where Keen is that he even realizes how far she's gone and how little he feels it. That, _too_ , is something he shoves in the box in his chest to never talk about again, the distance a loss in and of itself. Because he is severed, broken, and now there's irrefutable _proof_ of it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Humans are the most versatile race in all of Bahumia and, as such, their daemons are equally as varied. They are, however, the race with the lowest chance of same-sex daemons, though it's not impossible.
> 
> Keen settled when Hardwon decided to leave Irondeep to seek a name for himself.
> 
> Due to the presence of spells like revivify, raise dead, reincarnate, and true resurrection, dying is the only way to safely sever a daemon. Because the soul has to be willing, to return, it's almost impossible to force it, but it doesn't leave the daemon or humanoid catatonic or irreparably damaged after the procedure.


	3. iii. heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She is alone, truly alone, and finally has the time to ask herself: what happened to Thiala's daemon?
> 
> And does she really want to know?
> 
> Warning: none
> 
> (Alanis and Morris)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the things I'm very fond of in naddpod is the lore that we got about the Divine Hearts and divinity as a race. It's super fucking cool is what it is.
> 
> Alanis is...she's neat. She's neat. I like her.
> 
> I left the nature of the relationship between Alanis and the other two as vague but there was some throuple shit going on imho
> 
> I think I'm clever with names but also I think I'm clever about most things.
> 
> Dwarven daemon naming is: compound words! Keensight (Hardwon) and Fireforge (Ulfgar)! I'm consistent and clever *dances*
> 
> Buskin is named for the Tragedy Mask, as Thiala is the Muse of Comedy (I know this Thiala is named for a WoW character shhhhhh).
> 
> Morris is named for, yanno, Alanis Morisset?
> 
> (Again, I'm v clever lmao)

Gods don't _have_ daemons. That's a fact they've known for a while. The _Watchman_ didn't have a daemon. Pelor is _never_ depicted as having a daemon. Sylvanus is never _written_ as having a daemon. _Asmodeus_ didn't have a daemon.

It isn't until four timelines and a whole _fuckton_ of research that Alanis knows _why_.

A Divine Heart is not _just_ a source of divine and primordial magics, it is _also_ an organ made of compacted pure Dust. Gods don't _need_ daemons because their Heart is the closest thing they have to one. Literally _and_ figuratively, as it pushes liquid Dust through their veins in lieu of actual blood.

Which made her wonder:

What _happened_ to Buskin? Did he _unravel_ , pulled apart molecule by molecule until he was nothing, only to become part of her Heart, connecting the _human_ Thiala with the _goddess_? Was he _severed_ , the connection between them too weak to sustain him any longer? Did it _hurt_? Was he _scared_? Did he _suffer_? Did _she_ care that he was gone? Did he _choose_ to leave or was this _forced_ upon him?

Did he feel the same way _Thiala_ did about this choice to be attain divinity?

 _That_ , of course, lead her down the sad rabbit hole of thinking about Buskin and Morris and Forge. Of thinking about cuddling and love and comfort. Of thinking about Thiala and Ulfgar and _herself_. Of thinking about friendship and _more-than-friendship_.

Of thinking about Wishes and timelines and _regret_.

How had she missed him? How had she _not_ seen that Buskin kept wandering off somewhere? _How_ has she missed his listlessness and dulling fur? How had she missed his ever-quieting voice _finally_ falling silent? How had she let Thiala get away with this?

But, regardless, there were _other_ things on her mind.

It had been weird to wake up after that first Wish to find that Morris had settled, his spindly legs splayed out in wild confusion as she oriented herself in _this version_ of her past. She _still_ has trouble reconciling with how damning it is. How _strange_ it is to have a daemon that, while settled, is _mutable_. How _unusual_ and unique and _wholly her_ having a mimic daemon is.

How Morris imitated one of her many hairclips and stayed out of sight all the time. How Thiala _never once_ commented on his absence. How Ulfgar was the only one who asked, his face—even covered in the black scabs of that disease and twisted in battle-induced anger—concerned and sad. How she had to _lie_ to him.

How much it _hurt_ to do that.

How she stopped talking to Morris when he stopped being able to respond in any verbal capacity. How _futile_ it felt, holding one-sided conversations with herself. How it hurt to be _alone_.

How she wasn't _really_ alone, but it _sure fucking felt like it._

How him settling _then_ , at _that_ moment in time, means _far_ too much in regards to her morals and sense of duty than she'd like.

Thiala had said Buskin settled the day her father died, his final act that of pressing the symbol of Pelor he carried throughout his life into her hands. He begged her to stop the oncoming war with _everything_ she had, before succumbing to old age, at rest but not _peaceful_. A _paladin_ through and through. Before _then_ , she admitted, Buskin had taken more to forms with wings or maneuverability. He liked to be free and able to explore where she couldn't see. Yet he became a _lion_ , golden-maned, and grounded. Someone who could protect and save. Someone who could keep enemies at bay.

"Someone I needed then," she admitted with a dry and hollow laugh, her fingers intertwined with theirs, face pressed into Buskin's fur.

Ulfgar said that Forge settled naturally when he was about twenty and running a bodyguard job for some blacksmiths and merchants heading out to Ezry. Their caravan got attacked by some bandits and there was something about combat and saving and protecting that resonated within him.

"Like Morridan was showing me my _purpose_ ," he explained. "Forge settled and she was big and strong and together we could do _anything_. The rest is history."

At the time, Alanis hadn't been _too_ upset that Morris hadn't settled. She knew, _logically_ , that elven daemons settled _much_ later than human or dwarven ones, but there was this small twinge of jealousy that squirmed underneath her chest, when Morris would shift and Buskin and Forge wouldn't. Like she didn't understand herself well enough, like they did.

 _Now_? She understood _far_ more than she liked.

Because Forge is a dire badger. Big, strong, a burrowing _tour de force_ , with claws and fangs and a strong grip. She is perceptive and wild and clever, likes jokes and good food and better drink. She is headstrong and tenacious, never one to just _give up_.

Because Buskin is _gone_. He is part of the Dust that pulses through the veins of the goddess that was _once_ Alanis's friend. And maybe he doesn't exist any more or maybe he _does_ and he's in _perpetual pain_. No one but _Thiala_ knows, and Alanis isn't going to ask her. She wouldn't answer anyway.

Because Morris is a _mimic_. A crustaceous creature that hides its true form to manipulate, lie, and get the better of others. It values self preservation above all else, even to go so far as to blend in with the scenery. A liar. A sneak. _A fake_.

Ulfgar is gone. Thiala isn't _Thiala_ any more.

Alanis is a liar and usurper, and that's all she _can_ be in _this_ timeline.

(The man she takes from _this_ timeline—the back end of an aborted attempt for perfection, _only_ thwarted by dumb luck and hubris—is grey in hair _and_ outlook, his beaver daemon waiting _just_ as listlessly as he does. The man she sees when they arrive at her shack—the three heroes with him wary and confused as she dances to the tune of the Crone of the Sea—is grey still, but more _steel_ than lack of resolve, his fae dragon daemon orbiting the four of them with eyes peeled for danger. She wonders what that means; that _change_. If it means that _anyone_ is capable of such a feat. She decides to not bother thinking _too_ hard about it. It'd only make her sad.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strong magics — like Planar Shifting — will un and re-settle daemons to fit the nature of the new plane.
> 
> Non-animal daemons exist but are exceedingly rare and often only found on interstitial planes like Shadowfell and the Faewild.
> 
> The settling average is calculated in peacetime. In wartime, hard choices must be made and there are people whose daemons settle much younger due to this.
> 
> Dwarven daemons are most commonly land animals. More commonly burrowing animals. Grounded and sturdy.


	4. iv. settle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peacetime affords them time to figure themselves out. Thirty, fifty, hundreds of years before they make the decision that helps their daemon settle.
> 
> They don't live in peace. He is twenty-six, she is twenty-four, he is sixteen.
> 
> Warning: canon character death
> 
> (Hardwon and Keensight, Moonshine and PawPaw, Beverly and Leslie)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last thing I'm posting before the new decade and it's sad, so on brand as always.
> 
> Wanna say that I legitimately appreciate everyone who's ever read any of my works this year. Getting into NADDPOD was one of the best things that's happened to me since getting into TAZ and I'm glad that y'all have been so into my shit for the past year. It really did wonders for my mental health, having this outlet! Plus I've written so much this year! Over 150K words! It's great!
> 
> This chapter excludes when Keen settles a second time during the Astral Council. I just didn't know how to make it good? Also I felt it needed a whole chapter to itself.
> 
> Sometimes I have trouble sleeping so I write sad things. It works out. Yay me.
> 
> Leslie is an akita, btw.
> 
> Happy New Year: I'm very tired.

He has a bag packed. He's _always_ had a bag packed—there were _maybe_ two people who liked him here, so why bother pretending like he was gonna stay here forever—but now it feels more _final_. Keen pads behind him, claws loud against the hard stone of the pathway from the mine to the dwarfanage.

"They're _not_ gonna stop us," she says. He _knows_ this but she's gonna vocalize it anyway. She's always been the one that says his thoughts out loud.

He _hates_ that about himself. About _her_.

That makes him feel guilty about hating her for it.

She is _all he has_ , after all.

It's not like Gemma was gonna stay with him forever.

"Fucking _stupid_ ," he hisses through clenched teeth. His face is flushed and his eyes sting but he's not gonna cry. _He's not gonna cry._ He's **_not_**.

" _You're **not.**_ "

"Didn't say it was _me_ ," he snaps back. Her back arches, tail fluffed in surprise and anger, and she shifts fluidly from jaguar to a large owl, perching sharply on his shoulder. She draws a little bit of blood. Rude.

"Don't be a _shit_." She shifts again, a smaller cat than before, and digs her claws in his shoulder. "I _know_ it hurts. _Buck up_ , fucko. There's a _whole_ fucking world out there for us to check out. _Fuck_ this place, _right_?"

He clenches his jaw and rubs tears of pain from his cheek. His hiding spot isn't too far from the front door of the dwarfanage, so he darts to the side and pulls his bag from where he stashed it. The waterproof rucksack is filled with whatever rations he could squirrel away, a couple feet of rope, some torches, a shitty bedroll, and various other useful odds and ends. A good getaway sack.

He looks at the bag, at the mountain above him, at the dwarfanage, at the city where the rich folks live, and then, the exit to the world outside. His heart hurts but he knew this was coming. They both did.

" _Yeah_ ," he says, low enough that only Keen can hear him, "they won't stop us. We can just leave. See the world. Make a name for ourselves."

"Freedom sounds fucking _nice_ ," she agrees. She flickers, shifting into the small form of a pearl kite, talons lightly latching onto his shirt. "The _sky_ , the _world_ , _everything_ we'd _ever_ want. Being able to breathe without dust in our lungs."

"Sunlight that isn't filtered through goddamn ceiling vents. No more _mining_."

"We'll fucking _famous_."

" _Yeah_." His mind had already been made up though. The proof was in the sturdy, solid feeling of Keen on his shoulder. "Let's fucking _go_. Give you more space to spread your wings."

And Hardwon and Keensight left Irondeep with resolute determination.

(They found themselves in Moonstone, rescuing teenagers from bullywogs with a crick elf and a halfling teenager and a sense of purpose. They weren't heroes— _yet_ —but they were on their way, muddy and covered in leaves and blood. They had flown through the sky and seen more places than _ever before_ and there was _so much more_ to explore. They'd tried food that was _so new_ that they couldn't stop eating it. They'd tried burying their regrets in the earth. It hadn't worked, but the hollow feeling of pain and rejection was dulled by distance and time. For now, they'd just drown out those feelings with alcohol and drugs, repercussions be _damned_.)

* * *

Moonshine kneels down, blood trickling from a wound on her side. But that doesn't matter now. What matters is _her_.

_Marabelle._

She looks so _frail_ now, laying on the ground, her mushrooms withering and drying away. Even her daemon—or what _passes_ for her daemon, this strange creature riddled with mushrooms and the same black ooze that seeps from her eyes and mouth—is fading into grey-silver Dust. She is _dying_ and it _hurts_ in a way Moonshine didn't expect.

She _wants_ to hate Marabelle. She wants to hate this _monster_ who looked at her home, her people, _her family_ , and wanted to make them _suffer_. She wants to hate her Mee Maw's sister, this person who left Cobb in pain, _guilt-free_ and without abandon.

She _wants_ to be angry but she _can't_.

Not at Marabelle, anyway. _Ilsed_ , sure, but _not Marabelle_. Not when she explains, with dying gasps and psychic spores, that she _never_ wanted this.

That she just wanted to _go home_. That she _just_ wanted to see her sister. That she just wanted to cool her head and get her shit in gear.

That _Ilsed_ happened and _everything_ went tits up.

Moonshine can't help but cry silently as she watches Marabelle reach out to the tree they saw earlier—the one _begging_ for Jolene's forgiveness—and apologizes with what remains of her humanity. She watches as Jojo collapses, his big bear body erupting with the same mushrooms that later become Marabelle's calling card. She watches the Marabelle that _they_ fought stand up and head to the Crick to wreak her vengeance.

With her last breath, with the last vestiges of her energy, Marabelle _apologizes_ , seeing Jolene in her face, her shape, her shadow. Moonshine doesn't have the heart to tell her that she _isn't_ Jolene. That would be unkind. She _needs_ this kindness. They _both_ do.

Behind her, PawPaw scampers forward and solemnly watches from her side. His presence is grounding and _grounded_. Moonshine understands what it means but it doesn't matter. What matters is _Marabelle_ and _her_ story. The Crick and its _health_. The Rot, the Chosen, her people, and _then_ this revelation.

Because she isn't Jolene but she _can_ be. Because PawPaw _is_ who he _is_ and _that is enough_. Because she _isn't_ alone and she _knows_ it.

(But she affords herself a moment later, curled up in her stump, to cry and acknowledge that she is _forever_ different. PawPaw will _never_ change, but that isn't a bad thing. It just _is_. And she prays—to _Melora_ , to _Pelor_ , to _whatever_ god that _isn't_ Thiala that's listening to her that night—that Beverly gets to _wait_ before he makes his choice. She prays that Beverly gets to be a child for _as long_ as he can, reflected in Leslie's wild changing. She prays that Beverly doesn't settle _too_ soon. Coz even though she's an adult comparatively, she's _so_ young, and she knows it. And it **_hurts_**.)

* * *

They've been separated. The Hells are _already_ hard enough to navigate and tolerate with Moonshine and Hardwon and Balnor with him. Now that he's _alone_? He's **_terrified_**. And, _sure_ , he's not _alone_ alone, Leslie is by his side, warm and sturdy, but he misses the _numbers_.

And it's _worse_ because he's standing in front of a burning temple of Pelor where his father is ripping the wings off of angels. He's standing in front of the culmination of _so many_ bad decisions. _His_ , his dad's, Akarot's, Alanis's, and even _Thiala's_. There's _so many_ people to blame for this but now _Beverly_ is the one who's going to _fix_ it.

He's wanted to make sure his dad was okay since he watched him walk away in the Faewild. It's been haunting him from the _moment_ of his sixteenth birthday. _This_ is what he _needed_ to do. Make sure his dad is _okay_.

But he's paralyzed and Leslie is small and shivering in his pocket as his dad—who is standing there, horns poking out of his helm—and Jackie—no longer the slobbery mastiff he had been, nor the blink dog he last saw, but a red and black furred hellhound with liquid fire pouring from between his teeth—stares them down. _Demand_ that they join him. Insist it's their _duty_.

Beverly, panicked, afraid, _alone_ , grips the necklace that once belonged to Thiala and begs in prayer, " _ **Please.** I don't **want** to do this. I'm **scared.** **Help me.**_ "

He feels _her_ , Moonshine, reach out through Pelor's divine grace and her own spores line and it's a breath of fresh air and relief.

" _I don't know what to **do**_ ," he says to her. Through their faint connection he can hear her smile, warm and kind.

" _A **child** has a duty to his **father**. A **hero** has a duty to his **people**_ ," she offers, with no strings attached. And then, just as the last of her spores faded, their connection crackling out, she says, " _No matter **what** you choose, I will **always** love you._"

A warmth spreads in his chest, separate from the heat of the Hells, and he wants to cry. Because his father is _demanding change_ of him but Moonshine—and Hardwon and Balnor by extension, though they aren't there in actuality—are _so certain_ of his character that they wouldn't ask _anything_ of him if he wasn't ready for it. Resolve settling in his bones, he turns to face the mockery of his father and his daemon and squares his shoulders, ready. Beside him, Leslie shifts and spreads his paws wide, snarling, hackles up.

This isn't a happy decision, but it's _made_ and it's _his_. Not his father's. Not Moonshine's. Not Hardwon's. Not Balnor's. **_His._**

If he can't _save_ his dad, the _least_ he can do is get him _far_ away from the Hells and Ilsed's corruption. If he can't _save_ his dad, the _least_ he can do is make his death as _painless_ as possible.

Even if it hurts him the whole time.

(When they meet up again and sleep in Alanis's Mansion, after the revelation that Ilsed isn't _actually_ Ilsed, Beverly _finally_ takes a moment to take in the static form Leslie is going to have until he dies. A large, sturdy dog with a thick brindle coat and a curled tail, intelligent eyes, and a bite to fear. Just enough like Jackie before... _everything_ that happened. Just enough like Beverly himself to be bearable. But there's a sadness that comes with settling—not just in himself because, _yanno_ , he _killed his dad_ —where everyone looks at him with pity and he _understands_. He can't go back from this. So he and Leslie and Moonshine and PawPaw and Hardwon and Keen and Balnor and Alex and Alanis and Morris all share in the silence of understanding and it's hard but, _fuck_. It's the end of the world, after all.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The average settling age for halfling daemons are in their 50's. War fucks shit up.
> 
> While falling to unconsciousness won't outright sever someone, it is dangerous if they start failing their death saves, and will extend the pull distance and possibly damage their daemon, as they start to turn back to Dust.
> 
> People who make devil deals often find their daemon twisted into shapes that would be at home in the Hells. Like Jackie becoming a hellhound and Jojo becoming less of a singular entity and more Marabelle's most recent spore servant.


End file.
